ORLANDO, Florida – On paper it was Aurelien Collin’s 90th-minute header which forced the New England Revolution to settle for a point in Friday night’s 2-2 draw with Orlando City SC, but Revs head coach Jay Heaps felt the turning point actually arrived 15 minutes earlier.
That’s when Orlando forward Cyle Larin pulled the hosts within a goal, giving the expansion side life just four minutes after Kelyn Rowe had given New England what looked to be a comfortable 2-0 lead.
“Two-goal leads are tough when you don’t seal up five or 10 minutes of solid play right after the second goal,” Heaps said. “I think that was the turning point was allowing that goal five minutes later.
“That’s where I think we’ve got to be a little bit bitter and a little bit more sophisticated in our play.”
Heaps was happy with the way his side asserted themselves in the first half, taking an early lead through Charlie Davies – who has now scored in four straight games – and firing seven shots in the direction of Donovan Ricketts’ goal.
But a series of near misses, including a sequence late in the half in which both London Woodberry and Davies hit the woodwork back-to-back, left the Revs with just a one-goal lead heading into the break, and Heaps felt that in the end the Revs were left to rue that inability to put the game away.
“To be honest with you, I thought we could’ve been up more,” Heaps said. “I think that’s ultimately what cost us the game. We didn’t put the game away early enough.”
Heaps praised his counterpart Adrian Heath and Orlando’s relentless pressure through the late stages – “Even though we got the second goal, I’d argue they were much better in the second half,” he said – but also admitted that an inconsistent performance leaves the Revs with work to do ahead of next weekend’s meeting with another Eastern Conference foe, Toronto FC.
“When you have a 2-0 lead, you want to finish the game,” Heaps said. “In that regard, it’s disappointing. The overall flow of the game I thought was some of our best stuff and some of our worst stuff all in one.
“We’ve got some film to look at. We’ll keep it going. We have a couple days here where the guys can decompress. We’ve got to move on from this one pretty quickly.”
